


Dead Trees

by silver_penny



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Canonical Character Death, Demon Deals, Episode: s04e08 Legends of To-Meow-Meow, John Constantine Needs A Hug, John's everlasting guilt, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, The Newcastle Incident (referenced), after the midseason finale probably, he's not going to get one though, spoilers for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27709744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_penny/pseuds/silver_penny
Summary: “Name your price, John Constantine,” it says, and Death stops so abruptly he stumbles over his own dead feet. She spins around and he’s forced to follow, her arm still nestled in his. He follows her gaze upwards – there’s Johnny, all trench coat and defiance, and across from him is – is – quite a serious demon, if Des knows anything at all.“Huh,” Death murmurs. “I haven’t seen one of these for years. Or, well –“ she shoots him a cheeky smile. “Not a successful one, anyway.”“What’s he doing?” Desmond asks.“He’s bartering for a soul,” Death replies.After the Legends defeat and capture Neron, John demands an audience with Hell. He wants a deal: a demon for a soul.Set in the season four endgame, projecting forward from the midseason finale.
Relationships: John Constantine/Desmond
Kudos: 13





	Dead Trees

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration from this section of _The Kosovo Maiden_ , translated by Milne Holton and Vasa Mihailovich:  
>   
> “O woe is me, girl of wretched fortune!  
> Were I to touch, just touch, a green pine tree,  
> even that pine, that green tree would wither.”  
> 

‘…and demand an audience with your bleedin’ highness already!” John spat out the last few words, breathing heavily and glaring ahead into space. To his left Neron was standing dead centre in a complicated series of concentric circles and glyphs that John had insisted made up a fail-proof demon trap. He was staring intently ahead, his face rearranged to Desmond’s features, albeit sharper and colder than Desmond’s had ever been. There was a long, protracted silence, in which a demon continued to fail to appear. Zari coughed and stepped forwards, reaching out to place her arm on his shoulder.

“Look, John, you’ve given it a good effort and all, but this is clearly nOH MY GOSH. John. John. Can you –“ John clamped his hand over her mouth and shoved her backwards. Zari stumbled into Sara and wheeled around, gesturing over her shoulder.

“Yes, I can see it,” Sara hissed. “Shut up.”

In the front of the lab a great hulking figure had materialized. It built up in waves towards the ceiling and drooped down towards the floor, leaking darkness and menace and regarding John and Neron critically with its hundreds and hundreds of eyes.

“Name the purpose for which you have summoned me, mortal, that I might find it wanting,” it hissed, through absolutely no means that Zari could see.

“It’s Constantine, actually,” John said. “John Constantine. And I requested a conference with the triumvirate of Hell, not Azazel all on his lonesome. Has there been a shift in the status quo, or is my proposal not worth your time?” Zari could feel Sara choke behind her.

The demon shifted and let loose a low buzzing noise. Zari could feel it like flies trapped behind her eyelids, behind her eardrums. “We know who you are,” it conceded. “But Hell is a busy place, and I speak for us all. Make your request.”

“I have a traitor for you.”

“Traitors are common-garden in Hell, Mister Constantine.”

“Not a traitor to Earth. A traitor to Hell. This one here,” John waved in Neron’s direction, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “This one came to me with a plot to overthrow your little triumvirate. But I don’t interfere in the politics of other realms. So I have a deal to make with you.”  
  
“I know who you are, Constantine, and I don’t believe you. But I will hear your deal.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Good enough for me. Standard rules of exchange. I give you the demon, I want a soul in return.”

“The rules of exchange hardly allow for time-suspended transaction, Mister Constantine, and I have no jurisdiction over what is not mine. We cannot barter for your soul.”

“Not mine. Someone else’s. Anyone I name, in your care and within your power, as a lord of Hell, to return.”

The demon sort of – rustled backwards, and a number of its eyes blinked out. Zari could tell it was taken aback, and then carefully did not think about how she knew. In the long silence she heard the tell-tale snick behind her of Sara readying her weapon, and she felt her fingers twitch towards her totem in sympathetic response. John was still silent, staring into some handful of the demon’s eyes. He hadn’t looked at Neron once.

Finally, the demon spoke. “And what is to keep me from simply taking this alleged…traitor, and leaving?”

Wordlessly John took his hands out of the pockets of his trench coat, flashing that magical doodad that he’d had them chasing up and down the coast of 1750’s Portugal. Apparently, it’d been worth it, because Azazel stilled. It felt like watching a far-away tidal wave bear down on the shore.

“Then this is a threat?” Azazel asked quietly. Zari thought she’d stopped breathing.

“Oh, not at all,” John waved the idea away, his voice too loud against the tension in the room. “Just insurance. After all, I’m sure we can come to a deal.”

Azazel grumbled and then shifted form abruptly, winding around Neron’s magical cage. Zari could see a few eyes hanging back, still staring suspiciously at John. The buzzing that had been building inside her skull escalated, and as Sara’s staff snapped into place, Zari knew that she could hear it too. Sara started to move forwards, but John shot her a warning look and she relented, hanging back but remaining at the ready. John continued to stare intently towards his magical cage, at the place where Neron had been visible only moments before. Now that place was all darkness and eyes. With her hands clasped protectively over her ears, Zari could just make out Neron’s yelling from past the booming buzzing in her head. It didn’t mean anything to her, but John had shoved his hands back into the pockets of his coat, where she knew he’d placed the weapon. She exchanged a wide-eyed look with Sara, who appeared entirely too calm for someone with flies throwing themselves against their eardrums.

After a long, agonizing minute, Azazel resumed his position looming down at them from the ceiling, his eyes shifting into a new configuration, and the buzzing let off. Zari breathed a quiet sigh of relief and let her hands fall back to her sides. Neron was on his knees in the magic circle, and Desmond’s face was gone.

“Well?” John demanded.

“He is a traitor.”

“Well I knew _that_. I told you that first thing. Have we got a deal?”

“You will release Neron directly to us.”

“Yes. And to keep the balance – a single soul released from Hell.”

“Then it is a deal, John Constantine.”

All the hairs on Zari’s arms stood on end, and deep inside her own soul, in the place where Zari Tomaz touches the Air Totem, she felt the shockwave of that deal settle into place.

John turned – finally – to find Neron staring him in the eye through Desmond’s face. Neron said nothing, but as John rummaged around in his coat for a piece of chalk, as he knelt on the floor, hands shaking, and scrawled out a long string of runes around the cage, as Azazel took control of the circle and ripped Neron out of it and into himself in a long, blinding flash of light – he made Desmond scream.

As the last of Neron was swallowed up in Azazel’s heaving, ocular bulk, Desmond’s body hit the ground with a dull thud. Zari could see John flinch from half a room away.

* * *

When he opens his eyes, there’s a young woman hovering over him.

“Yup, that’s it!” she says. “Upsy-daisy, now. C’mon.” She grabs his arm and helps him up.

“Who –“ he asks. “What – Do I know you?”

She smiles warmly up at him. “No, Desmond, you don’t.”

“Well then – how –“

She gestures down, and Desmond follows her hand, blinks and stumbles backwards, reaching up to feel his own chest, his head, his face. He is here, but he is also sprawled prone on the floor below himself, and Johnny – Johnny is kneeling at his side. He heaves a breath inward, out of – well, out of habit, he supposes – and looks up from himself to the woman standing patiently in front of him. His eyes catch over the ankh around her neck and he remembers the old stories.

_Oh, you don’t call_ them _,_ he remembers Johnny laughing. _They call_ you.

“Death,” he breathes out. “I’m – I’m dead.”

She nods, rocking back on her heels. “You are,” she says. “Most people don’t work it out quite so fast. Are you ready to go?”

“Can I – can I have a minute? Here?”

“Of course you can,” she says kindly, and comes around – around his body – to stand beside him. “But you shouldn’t take too long. The dead aren’t meant to dwell with the living. But I think you know that, hmm, Mr. Laveau?”

“I – yes,” he says. “Yeah, I know.”

“Then take your time.”

Desmond kneels on the floor beside his own body. It’s eerie as anything he’s ever seen, and he’s from New Orleans. But now he’s at eye level with John, who’s reaching up to close his eyes.

“Hey Johnny,” he whispers. “I guess you can’t hear me, but then how’s that any different than normal, huh? Stupid of me, maybe, but – you can’t beat yourself up over this, alright? I made my own choices and I’m going to live with –“ He stops, reaching out a hand to steady himself, and takes a useless deep breath past the idea of pressure in his chest. “Look, Johnny, I just want you to be happy, okay? You can be happy. And I love you.”

He tries to think of something else to say, but no one else he cares for is there, and in the back of his mind he knows he’s just stalling. Carefully, he stands up, and Death’s arm comes up under his own when he stumbles.

“Okay,” he exhales. “Okay. I’m done.”

“Glad to hear it,” Death says, and is leading him away when a low voice buzzes out behind them.

“Name your price, John Constantine,” it says, and Death stops so abruptly he stumbles over his own dead feet. She spins around and he’s forced to follow, her arm still nestled in his. He follows her gaze upwards – there’s Johnny, all trench coat and defiance, and across from him is – is – quite a serious demon, if Des knows anything at all.

“Huh,” Death murmurs. “I haven’t seen one of these for years. Or, well –“ she shoots him a cheeky smile. “Not a successful one, anyway.”

“What’s he doing?” Desmond asks.

“He’s bartering for a soul,” Death replies.

His throat feels like it’s closing up, and he has never wanted to yell at Johnny more in his entire – in – ever. Johnny looks back down at his body, briefly, and he can see the tension in his shoulders, the tears in the corners of his eyes. He can see weeks of his own hard work wasted in the ribcage poking out against John’s shirt, in the exhaustion with which he hangs his head. Johnny looks up for a moment, squinting slightly at where Death is standing and then sweeping his eyes to either side. For an instant they are looking at each other. Des stops breathing – or stops pretending to breathe – and reading the guilt and grief and anger off of his boyfriend’s eyes is the easiest thing he’s ever done.

“Oh Johnny,” he whispers, half to himself. “Johnny, it’s okay.” Inexplicably he feels like laughing.

“Astra Logue,” Johnny says.

The demon melts away, shifting from their world to his own, and leaves behind a little girl, bloodied and exhausted and staring in confusion at the metal floor. The women at the back of the room rush forward, confused, but Johnny is there first, kneeling down and wrapping the girl in his arms, reaching up to tuck her head forwards so she can’t see Des’ own lifeless body.

Death is tugging on his arm. “Time to go, I think,” she says, and Desmond can feel the truth of her words somewhere inside of him. He takes for himself one last look at the tears on Johnny’s face, and then lets Death lead him forwards, sideways, upwards to the right and inbetween.

“Did I tell you,” she begins brightly, “what happened when I went to see your great-grandmother?”

* * *

A while later – a little more for Death, and a little less for Constantine – she finds him sitting in the doorway of the Waverider’s cargo bay, smoking a cigarette and watching the smoke drift up into the night sky. She skips up the gangplank and joins him.

“Enjoying the view, John Constantine?” she asks. He startles so badly he drops his cigarette and turns on her, clutching at his heart.

“Who on earth - oh.” he says. “It’s you. Hi.”

“Hello.”

“Come to take me with you?”

“Ah, not quite yet. Although you’re certainly speeding things up, going on like that.” She waggles a finger at the new cigarette he’s pulled out and is trying fruitlessly to light in the cold, wet air.

“Yeah, well I thought you’d be fine with that.”

She hums noncommittally and waits. She doesn’t have to wait long.

“You were there today, weren’t you? I could – I could hear you, I think.”

“I was,” she says. “How’s Astra?”

“Asleep,” he says. “She’s – she’s a tough girl, she’ll be okay. She’ll be okay.”

“She is,” Death says quietly. “How about you, John?”

“Oh, I’m always fine,” he scoffs.

“That,” she hums, “was probably the worst lie I have ever heard, and that’s including my older brother. I don’t believe you, not even a little bit at all.”

John yells in frustration and shoves his lighter back into his pockets. “What do you want me to say?” he snaps. “There’s a traumatized little girl in some dead man’s bed and I killed Des – again.”

“Astra is alive, John.”

“Yeah, and I killed another man to do it.”

She waits out his anger, kicking her heels against the side of the ship and admiring the stars. Finally, John sighs.

“Why are you here?”

“I think,” she says, ignoring him, “I think if Desmond were here…if he could say whatever he wanted to say to you…just at a guess, you understand…” She cuts her eyes to the side and can see he’s shifted to face her and gone completely still. Good. “I think Des would say he made his own decisions, and you shouldn’t blame yourself for someone else’s actions. He’d tell you that you should be happy, and that he loves you, and that you made the right choice.”

John laughs a wet, bitter laugh. “Oh yeah, that’s Des the optimist,” he snarls. “Give him a week in Hell, see if he changes his tune.”

“I didn’t know you thought so little of him,” Death says lightly.

John groans and lets his head fall back against the ship with a dull clank. “It doesn’t matter,” he shrugs. “He can tell me for himself when I get there.”

It’s Death’s turn to sigh. “John,” she reminds him, “Astra is _alive_.”

“I know!” he says. “I was there, remember?”

Death rolls her eyes and reaches out to snag the unlit cigarette from his fingers.

“Hey!” he protests.

“Astra is _alive_ ,” Death repeats, bopping him on the nose with his own cigarette and hopping off the ship onto the bright green grass below. “And you should spare a poor thought or two for the state of your own soul, John Constantine.”

She leaves him thunderstruck in the cargo bay and slips out of his world with the sound of her wings on the wind.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of a graft of various Hellblazer canons onto Legends!John, because I'm a little bit of the way through a lot of them.
> 
> John’s line in the second part is a paraphrase from The Sandman #3, _Dream a Little Dream of Me_ , as spoken by John to Chas. Azazel’s name and image are taken from The Sandman #4, _A Hope in Hell_ , under the assumption that there’s not more than one triumvirate ruling Hell across the various DC universes. The only John and Death interaction I know of is in _Death Talks About Life_ , but seeing as it’s Death and this is Vertigo I assume they must have met somewhere before.
> 
> All concrit very much encouraged and welcome!


End file.
